


White-Out

by sarahenany



Category: Spy vs Spy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:53:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahenany/pseuds/sarahenany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can't live with him, can't live without him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White-Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strixus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strixus/gifts).



"Good morning, sir."

"Ah, White, come in, come in." General Licht motions his subordinate to a seat, but the man remains stiffly at attention. "I've summoned you to this extraordinary briefing for a rather extraordinary piece of information."

"Yes, sir?"

"You don't need to worry about Codename Black anymore."

The spy code-named White blinks at his superior. He just got in from a mission in Sienna, and the jet-lag's done a number on him. Perhaps it's that which has him not making much sense of anything? "Pardon, sir?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, White, sit. You don't have to stand at attention like that, it gives me a headache." General Licht sits, waits until White's perched on the edge of a chair, on full alert. Ah, well, he supposes it would be too much to train a man to live the full day with his senses on high alert and then ask him to shut it off on demand merely because it makes his desk-bound superiors uncomfortable. "Here, have some coffee." He stirs enough cream into it to make it palatable, and hands it over. White accepts it politely and raises it to his face, but doesn't drink. _Well-trained. Never drink anything you haven't prepared yourself._ "It's not poisoned," Licht says reassuringly, although he doesn't really expect the veteran spy to believe it.

"Yes, sir." White makes no move towards the coffee. Oh well, Licht thinks, maybe the man is right. The secretary could have come in and spiked the coffee when he wasn't looking. Licht himself, unbeknownst to White, could be an impostor. Hell, come to that, maybe Licht himself has been brainwashed, and he himself doesn't know it yet.

 _This is why I got out of the field early,_ the General thinks _. Warps your mind._

Giving it up as a bad job, Licht leans back in his comfortable leather chair. "I called you in here," he says, "to inform you that you no longer need to worry about your opposite number, codenamed Black. Henceforth, he is no longer a surveillance priority, and has been downgraded as posing no threat."

If the General didn't know better, he'd swear he saw a flicker of emotion – fear, maybe, or perhaps it's confusion – behind the spy's façade. The man stays perfectly still, though. After a pause, he speaks, weighing his words carefully. "Has he been," White pauses for an instant, "terminated, sir?"

"No," says Licht.

"May I ask if he – has defected?"

Licht looks at the man before him, and ponders his options for a moment. This operative actually has the clearance to hear the details. True, espionage agents operate strictly on a need-to-know basis,  but the man's desire to know why his number one priority for years is suddenly being taken out of the picture is understandable. Of course, understandable doesn't necessarily mean Licht has to fulfill it.

This is one of those things that fall under the heading of 'personal discretion.' Sometimes Licht hates being one of the top brass.

"No." He reaches across the desk, snags White's cup of coffee, and drains it. The man looks at him with a _Gee, I wish I'd drunk that_ look. Well, tough titties, Mr. Suspicious Spy.

The man's still on the edge of his seat, and Licht decides to put him out of his misery. "There was a botched mission. From what intel we could gather, we learned that his handlers sent him to Amaranthia to infiltrate the labs and steal the new chemical warfare compound and its antidote."

At the mention of their allied country, White sits up a little straighter. "He didn't get it, did he?"

"No, no, don't worry." Licht assured, watching White relax. The slow-death formula, and its cure, were a closely guarded innovation produced by Amaranthia's top-flight biological warfare agents. Amaranthian and Weisslander diplomats were still in negotiations over an exchange treaty with Weissland. "We're safe. But the thing is, in procuring a sample, Black was exposed. He's very sick already, apparently, in a sanatorium of some kind. They've given him a month to live, so he's no longer in the field, naturally."

The unnatural stillness in White's posture tells the General that this news is far from neutral to the agent—if there weren't a lot of emotion in there, the spy training to hide any and all emotion wouldn't have kicked in all that powerfully. Even with all the years he has on White, though, Licht can't identify the emotion that the spy's hiding so carefully.

Finally, White nods. "I see, sir," he says tonelessly. "What are my new orders?"

The General takes a deep breath in through his nose. "You're officially on a short mission hiatus until we reorganize active fronts. Don't get too comfortable, though. Black was their best agent, and even now there's a bit of a scramble in the Nerovian upper echelons as they try and fill the gap. We need to plan how to exploit the weakness, be proactive. Be prepared to receive new orders in a day or two, stay on call, but take a weekend off, get some R&R. We need you rested for when you receive your new orders."

* * *

 

The sanatorium is nestled in the suburbs, as far from the Nerovian Embassy as one can imagine. It isn't even listed publicly as being owned by a foreign country.

Good thing White has high security clearance.

White slips through the restful gardens full of trees, lush grass and flowerbeds with riotous clumps of cheerful geraniums. A garden carefully planned to infuse confidence and life into a convalescent… or to ease the last days of someone about to die. White looks around and takes it all in, the small brick buildings, the ornamental pools. He doesn't even know exactly why he's here, except perhaps to verify for himself that the whole thing is some damned stupid rumor. After all, Black can't be sick. He _can't_ be sick.

He _can't._

_You don't get to be fucking sick, dammit!_

White's life has depended for so long, so fucking long, on the reality of his opposite number being there. There to blow things up, to engage in one-upmanship, the almost-friendly rivalry that can never, never actually _be_ friendly, of course. But Black has to be healthy, has to – dammit – has to be _there._

But one look through the sanatorium window confirms what White hasn't said, hasn't let himself think, not even in his own head.

Black is dying.

The normally skinny cheeks are sunken and pale. Beneath the skin, the very blood in his body seems gray. His bright black eyes, mischievous, full of laughter even when he's down… they have no spark. They're bleary, glassed-over.

The skinny form sits hunched over in a ratty pale-green hospital armchair, institution-issue black dressing-gown belted tightly around him. Thin ankles stick out from under pajama bottoms, skinny feet in institution-issue slippers. He looks like an AIDS victim in the 1980's, in the final stages of the disease.

There's no thought in it. White levers the window and slips in.

"Hi," he says.

Black looks up. His intelligent eyes blink muzzily, once, twice. A shadow of the old recognition gladdens his gaze. "Oh. It's you."

"Yeah."

White just stands there, and after a moment, the breath sighs out of Black. "Why not?" The ghost of a smile lifts his bloodless lips. "Only fitting, after all. Fraternizing with the enemy. Come in. Sit down. It's not contagious."

White sits on the bed. A plastic sheet crackles beneath him. It's not as comfortable as it should be, not as comfortable as a spy of Black's standing deserves, and he finds himself resenting it. "Where are all your visitors?"

"You of all people, you ask me that?"

"Your family – shouldn't they be here at a time like this?"

Black chuckles at that, a thin, painful-sounding wheeze from the recesses of his bony chest; the sound makes White cringe. "Spies don't have family. Love is a liability, you know that." The suffering dark eyes rise to meet his. "You _know_ that."

White stares. "Sounds like you have the same manual." Of _course_ Black does, he berates himself for his naïveté; Nerovia's spy manual must be the same as Weissland's, as Amaranthia's, come to that, just like the spy code everywhere. But somehow, he always imagined Black going home to a wife and a lot of little kids who looked like him, or perhaps a Mom and a grown-up sister. It seems a shame for him to live alone.

To die alone.

"You don't have _anyone?"_ blurts White.

Black half-smiles, tries to speak, then starts to choke on his own saliva. He extends a trembling hand, trying to get at a glass of water that's just a few inches out of reach. White rises from the bed, snags it, and kneels by Black's side, placing it into his fragile fingers. The hand's shaking so badly that White has to wrap both hands around it, help Black lift it to his mouth. When he's done, Black's sweating, panting like he's run a marathon. "Thank you," he whispers. And the voice is all _wrong –_ it should be cocky and confident, not fractured and faded.

White takes the glass from his hand, replaces it on the side-table. On impulse, he fills it back up from the carafe. "Hell of a way to live," he shakes his head.

"Makes it easier when you die," Black says. His voice is almost encouraging, like he's comforting White. "You don't have to worry about leaving anyone behind. No-one to be sorry. No-one to mourn."

White just shakes his head. "Hell of a way to live," he repeats.

"What we signed up for."

"Who knows what he's signing up for when he's sixteen?" mutters White. "They get you fresh out of the cradle."

"Sixteen, huh?" Black takes a slow breath, like his lungs are rationing the amount of air they'll process. "That is pretty damn young. Two years younger than I was."

"Eighteen isn't exactly the Old Man of the Sea." For some reason, White's miffed at the sympathy, almost pity, in Black's gaze.

"You never got a chance to be a kid."

White snorts. "Neither did you."

"Yeah, but six—" Black stiffens suddenly, then doubles over, an arm curling around his midsection.

"Hey, easy," White says, kneeling up, putting an arm around Black's shoulders. "You look like you should be in bed," he ventures.

Black hisses in a deep breath through his clenched teeth, then slumps, the tension going out of him as the pain subsides. "Been in bed all day. Soon I won't be able to sit up. Want to enjoy it while it lasts."

White looks at Black, shaking with weakness. So many times he's tried to destroy this man, and now… "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm… good." Black looks down at his lap. White realizes his hand is resting on Black's bony knee. He can't remove it without being too obvious, though, so he leaves it there. Slowly, Black says, "It's been nice to have a visitor. Thanks. Really."

"I could come again," White blurts. "Bring a magazine. What kind of magazines do you like?"

Black smiles, eyes closing, head drooping towards his lap. "Well, my guilty pleasure's always been…" His head jerks up as he wakes. "What kind of spies are we? You can't _bring_ anything in here. Who'll I say delivered it, the Tooth Fairy?"

White just looks at him, helps him lean back so his head's resting against the back of the chair. "You could read it while I'm here," he suggests, "and I'd take it when I left. Till," he swallows, "till you could take it home."

Black's eyes are soft and frank. "I'm not going home, White."

White sets his jaw. "Not over till it's over."

"Yeah, whatever," Black slurs. "On the other hand, maybe you'd better not come again. Fraterniz…"

Between one breath and the next, he's asleep. His breathing is not peaceful.

White stands watching him for a long time.

* * *

 

The great thing about being a spy, White thinks, is that you have a network of pilots who can fly you anywhere at a moment's notice. Usually without anyone knowing anything at all. Not even the pilot.

The great thing about being well-trained, White thinks, is that you can slip into a top-security installation like a knife through water.

Especially, White smirks, if it's an installation owned by an allied nation, which gives you access to the schematics and the algorithms to hack the passcodes.

The thing about stealing, White thinks, is that it's not a matter of getting the physical object. Copy the formula, photograph the process, duplicate the microfilm. Take it all back with you, leave the originals firmly in place.

The trick about stealing is not to let anyone know that you've stolen anything at all.

* * *

 

"White."

"Yes, General Licht."

"There's been an unexpected change in the situation."

"Sir?"

"New information has come to light showing that Amaranthia's chemical warfare agent is apparently less efficacious than originally thought."

"Oh?"

"The agent codenamed Black is apparently recovering from the poisoning seemingly without any antidote being administered, which has led to the formula being classified as a failure. Negotiations have been broken off and all stocks are being destroyed."

"Ah." A pause. "What are my new orders, sir?"

"Remain on call. Black is recuperating, but any day now you may be called upon to neutralize the threat."

"Understood, sir. White out."

White closes his cell phone and slips it into his inside pocket, next to the knitting magazine which is his opposite number's guilty pleasure. Then he slides open the casement and climbs in Black's hospital window.

They've got a game of chess scheduled, and he doesn't want to be late.

**Author's Note:**

> God, you're beautiful. You don't know me from Eve, even after the reveal, but I love your fic. I fought to get this prompt as a pinch-hit, and I'm forever honored to have done it.


End file.
